1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to a technique that can be applied when having a print controlling apparatus perform print control for displaying a user interface window on a screen. In particular, the invention relates to a technique for acquiring an image that is to be displayed in the user interface window from a server in accordance with, for example, the setting of the print controlling apparatus.
2. Related Art
In recent years, the Internet shopping systems have been gaining increasing popularity. Through a service offered by such an online shopping system, a user can place an order for a variety of goods via a network for online purchase. One of a variety of the Internet shopping systems is a printer-related online purchase system that allows a user to purchase printer consumable supplies via the Internet transaction. Upon reception of an order from a user who visited the Internet shopping site and placed the order thereon, such an online shopping system performs a series of sales transaction processing related to the shipment of the ordered goods and the collection of money therefor on the basis of the received order.
In connection with such a service offered by an online shopping system, in the technical field to which the present invention pertains, a print controlling apparatus of the related art provides a user interface window on a display screen so as to notify a user that the remaining amount of their printer consumable supplies is small. In addition, the print controlling apparatus of the related art displays a link button in the user interface window with an aim to guide them to an online printer consumable shopping site. An example of such a technique is described in JP-A-2002-229889.
With the popularization of the Internet, these days, information distributed over networks is supplied beyond national borders. Accordingly, an online shopping site can receive orders not only from domestic customers but also from foreign customers.
From the viewpoint of customer-friendliness, it is preferable to tailor content that is presented to the Internet customers to local business practices that vary from one country or region to another. In order to offer such a locality-oriented online purchase service, it is necessary to diversify content that is presented to a user depending on their language or country (which includes regions and equivalents) (hereafter collectively and generally referred to as “country area”) thereof if a universal online purchase infrastructure is adopted.